New-Home Sales Quiz: Are You a Leader or Follower?

There are two very different ways to sell and demonstrate new homes: either leading or following the client.

Of course, the client isn’t going to correct you whichever style you choose. They will give you free rein to be yourself, but the results are significantly different. Let’s look at the differences and ensure that you and your sales team are taking charge and creating sales that wouldn’t have occurred without your seamless expertise.

Give yourself a score from 1 to 10 (10 is the highest score) for each element, and let’s see whether you are a leader or a follower.

1. Greet on your feet
Research shows that you have eight seconds to make a great first impression. Are you meeting the client when they enter your sales arena, on your feet, with a smile and genuine rapport building, or are you passively sitting back and waiting, which is usually interpreted by clients as a lack of interest?

2. Be curious
Are you asking specific open-ended questions, so that you are learning about clients and reassuring them that you understand their needs before sharing important information? Or are you launching into either a hackneyed, “Let me tell you!” drill sergeant type of approach or, even worse, sharing no presentation at all?

3. Give a meaningful presentation
Are you leading the client by giving a big-picture presentation that includes information about the location, the community, and the builder, or are you following by immediately defaulting to a “house-centric,” square-foot-laden, feature dump?

4. Lead in
Are you prepared by numbering every floor plan and ensuring that you lead the client through your homes so that they fall in love and enjoy as many emotional hot spots that resonate with their lifestyle, as quickly as possible? Or are you allowing the client to lead you through the home?

5. Alternate choices
With a presale, are you being direct and finding out what items, such as cabinets, counters, and flooring, your clients are leaning toward, in which case they will already be moving toward you and the sale? Or are you being timid and using rhetorical phrases, such as “If you would like,” and never checking in to find out what your clients really think or what they want in their brand-new home?

6. Transfer ownership
Are you proactively encouraging clients to picture themselves living in one of your homes, or are they just out for a day of sightseeing in your models? Techniques such as placing their furniture in specific rooms, finding out how they will enjoy each space, and who will be enjoying major rooms, make the connection with you and your homes irresistible.

7. Close as you go
Are you waiting until the end of your meeting and nervously asking for the sale, holding your breath, and hoping that your client may like your home? Or are you consciously closing out each major portion of your home?

8. Narrow things down
Are you physically “siting” clients on the first visit to either a homesite or a showcase home, or are they leaving with just a general idea of what their choices are without having physically experienced them? Once they have personally experienced the actual view or home, a connection happens when they will start falling in love and not want to live without.

9. Ask for the sale
Are you asking for the sale, and acting as if you mean it, or are you talking in wandering generalities? When you ask for the sale, the best outcome is that the client agrees to move forward, the second best is that the client shows you their “big but” or shares their real buying objections. When you hear an objection, do you engage immediately by specifically questioning and managing the objection, or do you become despondent or worse, default to a rote answer without knowing the clients’ specific concerns?

10. Appointments with purpose
If you have asked for the sale, well done. However, based upon the complexity of the sale, and the buyer’s personality style, there may be many reasons the clients want some time to think. Are you immediately making an appointment with a stated purpose and a specific date and a time, or are you suggesting that they come back when they are ready?

Total your score. How did you do? Of course, the scoring is an honor system, designed to help you self-evaluate and improve in the specific areas you need to grow and develop, as well as have some fun while you learn.